1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for processing a substrate. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus for performing coating, baking and developing processes on a substrate such as a silicon wafer.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a semiconductor processing technology, a photoresist pattern may be used as an etching mask for an etching process that is performed to form circuit patterns having electrical characteristics. The photoresist pattern may be formed by a substrate-processing apparatus or a photoresist-pattern-forming apparatus that is connected to an exposure apparatus.
The substrate-processing apparatus may include coating units for forming a bottom anti-reflective coating (BARC) layer and a photoresist layer on substrates, heating units for hardening a BARC layer and a photoresist layer, heating units for performing a post-exposure bake (PEB) process on substrates that are subjected to an exposure process, developing units for performing a developing process on a photoresist layer that are subjected to an exposure process, heating units for hardening photoresist patterns formed on substrates, cooling units for cooling substrates heated by the heating units, transfer stages for receiving substrates, etc.
A substrate-transferring robot may be disposed between the processing units and may transfer the substrates between the processing units in accordance with a predetermined process recipe.
However, because the times required for the unit processes may be different from one another, waiting times of the substrates in the processing units or the transfer stages may be increased, and the substrate-transferring robot may be overloaded.
Further, a BARC layer may not be used according to a process recipe, a photoresist composition, a required width of a photoresist pattern, etc. Thus, some coating units may be unnecessary.
As a result, the throughput of the substrate-processing apparatus may be deteriorated, and thus an improved substrate-processing apparatus is needed to solve the above-described problems.